The siblings looked at each other knowingly, the ranks that would have once made them jump for joy barely phased them. They knew their strength was at least around Mithral rank and if they kept training with Akil they would quickly reach and probably even surpass Adamantium rank. Akil himself put on a look of surprise but there was no passion behind it, it was easy to tell he was mostly uninterested.
Marisha was surprised when the trio barely reacted to her revelation, most hunters would be overjoyed to increase in rank so quickly. She had a small frown on her face, “I thought you guys would like to know.”
Tristan rubbed the back of his head and looked over to the disappointed Marisha. “Thank you for letting us know, sorry we don’t seem excited about it right now, it's just been a long night…”
Marisha realized that they had most likely been out all night fighting the invaders and a little bit of red creeped into her cheeks from patronizing them while they were exhausted. “Sorry... Thank you for bringing news from the battlefield. Please, go home and rest.”
The trio said their goodbyes to Marisha and left the guild, they originally just wanted to inform the guild of the defense of the city. The siblings were not pretending in the guild, they were extremely exhausted. They had finished clearing the Dungeon then repelled the cult all in one sitting. Akil walked them out into an alleyway and transported them back to Jamiea. They quickly split and went to their respective rooms, with Selena following Akil to his room. Selena passed out quickly, Akil looked at her lightly breathing figure deep in thought.
The longer he was in this world the more high key he was acting, he now had The Righteous Flame and the entire city of Graycott witness a portion of his powers. At this rate his fame would spread along the entire continent of Talendria. This was part of his initial plan but he couldn’t help but be nervous about attracting more powerful enemies, especially now that he was growing attached to the people of this world. He had always tried to keep himself distant from the more mundane happenings of mortals simply because it gave his enemies more ammunition to use against him.
Unfortunately for him, no matter how he tried, he always ended up attaching himself whenever he got even slightly involved. Most would say that he cared for the people he met far too much but he disagreed, he thought that it was the only thing that kept him from losing his humanity. He looked down at the sleeping Selena and smiled, he didn’t regret any of it, she was worth any troubles that came up. He would protect his new lover/disciples with all his might if it came down to it. He laid his head down and closed his eyes, letting himself drift into dreams.
Akil woke himself up after 8 hours of sleep, he gently nudged Selena awake much to her chagrin. She groggily sat up and stretched, forcing herself awake. Akil looked at her with a grin on his face, no matter how many times he saw her fight to wake up he still thought it was adorable. “Prepare yourself, we are going to spend the next few Jamiean days training.” She absentmindedly nodded her head at him, barely hearing what he said to her. Akil got up and splashed himself off with water in the washroom, he went back and fetched Selena who had finally awoken from her sleepy stupor.
Akil made some breakfast before they both made their way to the training hall where Tristan was already waiting. Akil stood in front of the two siblings and started speaking. “You both did really well these last couple of days, both in the dungeon and during the impromptu battle we had with the cult. You two have really started to grow into your new abilities, I feel that soon you will be true experts and won’t need me anymore.”
They both were looking at him with smiles until he got to the end of his speech, a look of unease passed both of their faces when he mentioned not needing him anymore. Selena spoke up timidly, “You’re not planning on leaving us once you finish our training?”
“Don’t worry, I can’t promise I’ll always be around but I can promise that I will give you a way to always be in contact with me should you need it. You don’t need to worry about me leaving unexpectedly.” Akil said to sooth them while staring at Selena. They visibly relaxed at his words, especially Selena, she had been thinking about this for a while but had been afraid to ask.
The siblings started their training with a newfound fervor, they felt as if they were getting much closer to reaching level 12, at this rate they would be there within a week or so of training. The training lasted for 5 days, which would put them at roughly 6 hours passing in Rendilion. They had left in the early hours of the morning so they would be back by around midday.
They left in high spirits, prepared to face whatever new challenge popped up. Akil transported them close to the Hunters guild in an empty street. They walked back to the hunters guild quickly, they could feel an air of jubilance in the air. There were drunk soldiers walking around with youths who had been pressed into service, celebrating their win together against the cult. The merriment reached a head when the trio walked into the hunters guild where there was an uproar of activity. The hunters were celebrating their contribution to the “war” with loud swapping of battle stories and rambunctious drinking. As the trio walked through the door they were recognized by an errant hunter who shouted “They're here, it’s the Order of Arcane Mysteries!”
The whole place quieted down for a moment as everybody turned to look at the newcomers. Selena and Tristan felt a wave of awkwardness just before the crowd broke out in loud cheering. They crowded around the trio, drinks were shoved into their hands and lots of clapping on the back and shoulders was done to the trio. Stories began to change to the impressive feats of the trio, how they single handedly took out large swathes of cultists all by themselves and how their planning had saved a great deal of lives. The trio became the guest of honor as more and more people began to swarm into the hunters guild, regular soldiers and militia fighters heard the commotion and came in to join in.
The hours quickly passed, the trio didn’t have to pay for a single drink or meal as everyone fought to fawn over them. More than a couple of times random chants and cheers broke out praising them. “Let's hear it for the Saviors of Graycott and the soon to be Platinum rank hunters!” Eventually Tristian managed to pull himself away from the party to catch his breath outside the back of the Guild. He took in a breath of fresh air and sighed deeply, he wasn’t used to this level of energy usually preferring to be more laid back and reserved. As he sat there contemplating he heard the door to the guild swing open to his side. He braced himself and prepared for the worst
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Instead he was met with a soft voice, “You didn’t tell me that you guys were going to be heroes after the battle.”
He looked over to see Marisha with a rare teasing smile on her face.
“Everyone kept pouring in saying how amazing you guys were, they wouldn’t shut up about it.. It was borderline hero worship.” she continued.
Tristan turned to face her, he rubbed the back of his head with his hand like he always did whenever he was nervous. “They’re really exaggerating, we didn’t do that much…”
She shook her head, “I may not have been there but from everything I’ve pieced together I can tell that you three did far more than you’re letting on.” She moved her face really close to his, so close he could feel her breath on his nose. “What happened to you two, just a couple of weeks ago you were so sick and barely alive now you are showing strength that's much higher than higher than what you were previously capable of. It seems to all have stemmed from that mysterious guy.”
Tristan’s cheeks turned rosy, he turned his head to the side to avoid her gaze that he felt was boring into his soul. This caused her to realize just how close she had gotten to him, her cheeks also started to burn red as she pulled back a little bit. She sputtered out a bit more, “Anyway, don’t worry about it, I won’t pry too much into your life. I’ll leave you to catch your breath a bit more, I can tell you’re not used to this level of attention.”
She quickly turned to leave but before she could get far Tristan grabbed her arm gently. She turned back surprised as he said. “Wait, Marisha, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you’ve ever done for me and my sister. I know everything you do is because you truly care about us. If you ever need anything please don’t hesitate to ask me, I owe you more than I will ever be able to repay.”
He looked towards the ground shyly as he said it, afraid to look her in the eye as he said something so embarrassing. He felt a sudden warm, soft pressure on the side of his cheek causing him to look up. He just caught Marisha backing off from kissing his cheek, a coy look on her face.
“And just so you know, I don’t hate the new you.” She whispered just loud enough for him to hear before she turned and rushed back inside.
He sat there dumbfounded, rubbing his cheek. The two of them had always teased each other but he never realized there might be something more there. He sat outside for a long time gathering his thoughts before finally going back inside to the festivities. Selena saw her brother return and could tell there was something on his mind but she left him alone for now, if it was immediately important he would tell her now and if it wasn’t she could always find out later. Akil, who had seen an embarrassed Marisha come in from the same place as him previously, only gave Tristan a knowing smile. The party raged on deep into the night, Tristan and Selena both ended up getting quite inebriated while Akil managed to drink more than a few people under the table at their own insistence. He knew that he had an unfair advantage due to his special constitution but they had been very persistent so who was he to stop them.
Akil tossed Tristan over his shoulder and picked up Selena in a princess carry and brought them both to the inn near the hunters guild. He could have healed them both with magic but every now and then it was important to instill the importance of the consequences of their own actions. Even from inside the inn it was easy to hear the celebrations that were happening throughout the city, they had died down a bit but it wouldn’t be until late into the morning when they would finally end completely. Akil transported all three of them to Jamiea once they were safe in the room and brought them both to their respective rooms.
Akil spent the rest of the night planning out his next moves, first on the docket was to take the test to become platinum ranked hunters. He found out today that they would have to go to the capital city to find someone who was qualified enough to test them for it. There were a couple of things that they needed to take care of before heading to the capital. One thing he wanted to wait for was the arrival of The Righteous Flame, he scryed them during the night to make sure that they were on their way. It seemed that they would be there in one more day. It gave them some more time to train while they waited. He was hopeful that he would be able to get the siblings to get to level 12 before the other party got there. He spent the next couple of hours preparing some plans for the training and how he would handle The Righteous Flame. After he finished with the plans he took out the dungeon core that he had got from the final floor of the dungeon.
He spent the rest of the night studying the core, he was able to deduce that it was made from concentrated magical energies, in this world it would be called mana. More importantly he found a complex magical formula embedded inside the structure of the core. It seemed to be a complicated set of instructions on how to run the dungeon. It was almost as if there was some being that created these cores with these instructions but whatever did it would have to be exceptionally powerful. It was said that dungeon cores could be used to make powerful magic items on this world but Akil could see that if one didn’t remove the instructions from the core the magic items would be a ticking time bomb that could be activated by the creator of the core. Akil used his magic to completely wipe away the information etched in the core. At this point it had been a full night and it was time for him to wake up the siblings. He put the core away for now as he planned on what to create with it.
Akil walked over to the siblings' rooms and knocked loudly. He could hear groans coming from both as they awoke. Akil raised his voice above the groans, “It's time to wake up both of you, remember you did this to yourselves.”
Tristan was the first to stumble out of his room, his hair was in disarray and he had dark circles under his eyes. He started to cast a spell to clear himself of his hangover before Akil stopped him. “Oh no, you will not be able to get over this that easily, you will go through your first bout of training as you are now. It's an important lesson to learn that you will not always be at your peak condition when a fight pops up.”
Tristan stared at Akil in disbelief, he could barely walk without his head pounding and he was expected to somehow train like this. He cried internally as his sister stumbled out of her room. She was a little bit better put together, at least her hair and clothes were nicely done but her face told the story that she was anything but okay.
Akil practically dragged them to the training hall and got them ready to run through their training much to their dismay. What followed was the most grueling training session they ever went through, they ended up making some mistakes during the mock fights that they normally wouldn’t and ended up much more beat up then they usually would. This lasted for an entire hour before they got to the first break in the training before Akil restored them to their peak conditions. They had never been so glad to receive the blessing then they were at that moment. Their training continued for the rest of the day and then bled into the next few days.
During the third day Akil could sense that they were about to break through so he increased the intensity of the training to push them to their limits. After a tough session they finally managed to break through the hurdle of level 12, they were very pumped. They could feel themselves surging with newfound power, although they didn’t get any higher level spells they had a marked increase in their strength. Akil congratulated them with a fancy meal and the next day off from training.